Hayden High School student Kaitlynn Campbell won the Miss Alabama's Outstanding Teen pageant on March 8. It was the first-ever pageant competition for Campbell.

Of the 41 other teenage girls that Kaitlynn Campbell competed against last weekend at a beauty pageant in Sylacauga, many — perhaps most — were veterans of the pageant circuit, just as other girls play on travel teams for softball or volleyball.

For Campbell, though, it was her first pageant — ever.

It will not be her last.

The Hayden High School junior won the Miss Alabama’s Outstanding Teen pageant, a younger version of the Miss America program run by the same national and state organizations.

Campbell didn’t go through the normal process of winning a local qualifying pageant. She went as an at-large contestant, practiced in advance on a stage in Oneonta, and showed up at B.B. Comer High School.

“I was chosen to sing the national anthem here at the school’s Veterans Day program,” Campbell said. “Then Ms. Standridge got a pamphlet about the pageant. She said that when she received it, the first person she thought of was me.” (Karron Standridge is a guidance counselor at Hayden High.)

The entry fee was money well spent, as she’s now earned a $5,000 college scholarship plus a full four-year scholarship to any of five different in-state universities, including Alabama and Auburn.

“I didn’t go into it to win — I went in to gain experience,” Campbell said. “I’m still kind of in shock. It’s so crazy — I can’t believe it. I could not even walk in heels before I did this.”

Campbell’s poise and talent belies a young woman whose early family life was troubled.

She is reluctant to discuss details publicly for a host of reasons, but Campbell came to Hayden with plenty of personal issues, and she currently lives at a group home for girls.

“I went in as a bit of an underdog, because I haven’t had the privileged background that some girls have,” Campbell said. “I’ve sung in choirs and school plays and such, but I’ve never had much professional training.”

Campbell will next compete in the Miss America’s Outstanding Teen Pageant in Orlando, Fla.